Special Topics Extravaganza

On Tuesday May 29, Marisha Pessl will be reading from her book, Special Topics in Calamity Physics at the Decatur Library. The event starts at 7:15 PM and is sponsored by the Georgia Center for the Book. Wordsmiths Books is the bookseller. They’ve graciously offered us two paperbacks to give away to our readers. So it’s contest time.

The book tells the story of Blue van Meer. In the introduction, Blue quotes her father, Garrett, “Dad always said a person must have a significant reason for writing out his or her Life Story and expecting anyone to read it.” What follows are the extraordinary events that unfold as Blue settles into her Senior year at a new high school. One interpretation of the book’s title is that it can be read as the title of a course about her Senior year in high school.

So here are the rules of our contest: In the comments, tell us the title of the course that would describe your Senior year in high school. Mine would be called: Introductory Bartending for the Novice Music Snob (prerequisites: Clues for the Clueless, Advanced Orthodontia, Remedial Driver’s Ed for the Unfairly Crash Prone/Menaces to Society, Rugby Basics for the Uncoordinated). Next week, L’il Cayenne will draw the names of two lucky winners. You need not be local to win. We’ll ship you a signed copy if you live elsewhere or otherwise can’t make the reading.

In a review for the New York Times, Janet Maslin called the book “required reading for devotees of inventive new fiction.” If that sounds like you read on. (You can read my review of the book here.)

More Chabon?

Perhaps my recent coverage of the hype around the new Chabon has been a little – um – overly enthusiastic. For that, all I can say is… you aint seen nothin’ yet. Behold! I have taken two BGB inside jokes and run them as far into the ground as possible. I blame Herman for planting this idea in my head.

Man, that’s bad.

Because we just can’t help ourselves, here’s more:

There is a real trailer for The Yiddish Policemen’s Union that I stumbled across last night while making the video above. Unlike my efforts, they appear to have some style, a little class, and possibly even a budget.

Alert reader Nicole sent this link to a Seattle Times interview with Chabon (thanks!).

Londonstani

Gautam Malkani’s Londonstani was first added to my mental “to be read at some future date” list after hearing the author talk about the book on NPR.

You can think of Londonstani as a depiction of the seamy underbelly of the movie Bend it Like Beckham. The book takes place in London’s Houndslow neighborhood, the same Heathrow airport-area neighborhood where Jesminder and the gang played soccer. Many of the themes are identical, just told from vastly different viewpoints.

First and foremost, Londonstani is a novel about identity. How do the children of immigrants view themselves in their home country when they are culturally of a country that they’ve never visited. At the beginning of the book, Jas describes how the self-description of his crew’s ethnicity has changed over time while hinting at his own lack of belonging within the group:

First we was rudeboys, then we be Indian niggas, then rajamuffins, then raggastanis, brit-asians, fuckin Indobrits. These days most a us try an use our own word for homeboys an so we just call ourselves desis but I still remember when we were happy with the word rudeboy. Anyway, whatever the fuck we are, Ravi an the others are better at being it than I am. I swear I watched as much MTV Base an downloaded as many DMX, Rishi Rich an Juggy D tracks as they have, but I still can’t attain the right level a rudeboy finesse. If I could, I wouldn’t be using poncy words like attain an finesse, innit.

The observations above are delivered while Jas watches his buddies savagely beat a white kid from their school who may or may not have called them “pakis.” The gang consists of three members, plus Jas. They are Hindus and Sikhs who for complicated cultural reasons are able to hang out together. Their rivals are Muslim gangs. Nothing makes either side more upset than being lumped together by outsiders – except possibly being mistaken for Pakistanis.

Jas was formerly and recently just a skinny book nerd with no friends. He began to change his appearance, style, and speech until he got the attention of the group. He becomes a sort of mascot for the group, and he seems to be continually teetering on the edge of acceptance with them. His insecurity results in an embarrassing stuttering pattern of speech that brings him more grief.
The group ostensibly attend what I guess is comparable to an American junior college. In actuality, they are engaged in petty street crime. The syndicate reprograms cell phones so taht their customers can use the phones with other carriers without having to get out of existing contracts.

They picture themselves as gangsters, but they live at home, drive around in their parents’ cars, use their parents’ newer/cooler cell phones, and keep their cellphones on so that their parents can keep in touch with them. When the boys get in some trouble, a teacher vouches for them on the condition that they agree to be mentored by a former star pupil who also of Indian descent. This scheme does not exactly go according to plan.

As in Bend it Like Beckham, the chasm between the generations is huge and seemingly insurmountable. The older generation expects the younger to continue to observe traditions that they’ve never experienced first hand in order that life continues as it always has. It is amazing the lengths that the self-styled desi toughs will go to to remain on the good side of their elders.

The book is written in the slang of the desi gang. Some reviewers were turned off by the slang, but I think it makes Jas’ story feel immediate, vibrant, and more than a little dangerous. It actually reminded me of Irvine Welsh’s use of street vernacular in Trainspotting, etc. In the NPR interview, Malkani says that some of the slang is made up so it wouldn’t instantly date the novel. It worked for me.

The author is a reporter for the Financial Times in London. There is a complicated plot element involving the EU’s Value Added Tax that may require a similar type of background to fully understand. It doesn’t take anything away from the book if you don’t follow it all – trust me. This is Mulkani’s first novel.

I enjoyed this novel thoroughly and recommend it. Its violence and street slang may make it the “male version” of Brick Lane, which I finally read after finishing this book. If you don’t handle fictional violence well, you won’t make it past the first chapter. However, the violence never really approaches that level again. Some reviewers have also said that a plot twist at the end of the book was not much of a twist, but it left me with my jaw dropped open and scrambling to retrace my steps. Perhaps I’m just easily duped. I hope someone else will choose to pick this up so we can compare notes.

All Chabon

Now airing on BGB2 – The All Chabon Channel:

The NYT runs its second review in as many weeks for the Yiddish Policemen’s Union here. Is the accompanying art work by “Max” the artist Peter Max? Just curious.

Michael Chabon’s official web site has an official poster for the Sitka, Alaska World’s Fair. If you weren’t paying attention, that was in 1977. All fictional. I love it.

Washington Post Book World’s review is here.

Maud Newton compares the book to a Chandler crime novel.

There is also a super sweet Yiddish Policemen’s Union Special Edition available out there. It comes with a signed copy of the book and a wooden slip with fantastic art work. This could be a perfect gift for the fan of Pacific Northwest tribal art and Chabon that might also have a 40th birthday around the corner. If you know such a person.

And lastly, Chabon will be reading in Atlanta on Thursday May 24th at 7 PM. It’s happening at the Barnes and Noble in Buckhead, which just bums me out tremendously.

Half of a Yellow Sun

Half of Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is one of those books that has been on many award/best of lists. I picked up this book as well as Digging to America by Anne Tyler after they were both on the Orange Prize Book Award. I did read Digging to America, and it’s not even worth posting on so we’ll just move on to this wonderful book which deserves any prize that it wins.

The book takes place during the Nigeria-Biafra war which took place from 1967 – 1970. It is told from the viewpoint of 2 sisters, Olanna and Kainene, and the 3 men in their life. Prior to reading this book, I knew nothing about Biafra and it probably would have been helpful to read the Wikipedia entry. The title of the book comes from the Biafran flag

As a brief summary, Nigeria is primarily made up of the Igbo (Christian) tribe and Hausa or Fulani Muslims. Most of the Igbo live in Eastern Nigeria and in 1967, an Igbo military commander, Colonel Ojukwu, seceded from Nigeria and declared Biafra an independent state. The war went on for three years with Nigeria blockading Biafra from receiving any supplies including those from the Red Cross. By the end of the war, more than a million people had died as a result of starvation and other war atrocities. By 1970, with no chance of survival and minimal world recognition, Biafra surrended and rejoined Nigeria.

As a brief summary, Nigeria is primarily made up of the Igbo (Christian) tribe and Hausa or Fulani Muslims. Most of the Igbo live in Eastern Nigeria and in 1967, an Igbo military commander, Colonel Ojukwu, seceded from Nigeria and declared Biafra an independent state. The war went on for three years with Nigeria blockading Biafra from receiving any supplies including those from the Red Cross. By the end of the war, more than a million people had died as a result of starvation and other war atrocities. By 1970, with no chance of survival and minimal world recognition, Biafra surrended and rejoined Nigeria. So now that you understand the backdrop of the novel, let’s get back to the characters. Olanna and Kainene are the twin daughters of wealthy Nigerians who have very different temperaments, hopes, desires and even looks. Olanna is the beautiful sister and Kainene is the homely one. Olanna lives with Odenigbo, who is known throughout the book as the Revolutionary Lover. He is a mathematics professor and surrounds himself with fellow intellectuals. They spend their evenings discussing politics, literature and the arts.

Odenigbo and Olanna are very involved in Biafran politics and are much in favor the secession. They have a houseboy, Ugwu, who is a poor village boy whose voice is heard throughout the novel. Ugwu, who I assume was representative of most of the Biafran population at that time, really had no understanding of the war. He just blindly followed his Master and believed that the Biafrans were “good” and the Nigerians “evil.”

Kainene is the more practical of the two sisters and is taking over the family manufacturing business. She lives with Richard, a white English man who desperately wants to be Biafran. When Biafra secedes, she views its effects from an economic standpoint and her discussions and relationships never center on the politics and morality of the war.

This is another story with a common theme of how upper-middle class families react during war-time. Similar to Suite Francaise, set during WWII, the main characters can not imagine how dire their circumstances can become. Their world, both economically and intellectually, shrinks little by little as the war progresses until by the end of the novel they are no different from the millions of other victims of the war who are starving and living in dire circumstances.

All of the characters are rich, multi-dimensional and their inter-locking relationships would have been enough material for a novel without the historical significance of the Nigerian civil war. That’s what makes this novel so wonderful – it is a story about relationships of all types – political, tribal, familial, romantic – and Adichie captures it all with beautiful prose and a gripping story. It was one of the books that I just couldn’t put down.

Irvine Welsh: ATL

Last night, Mrs. Cayenne and I made our way out to the Highland Inn Ballroom to catch Irvine Welsh reading from his latest book (now in paperback) The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs. I had never been to the Highland Inn other than to eat at the former Cafe Diem. I had always thought of the Highland Inn, fairly or not, as Atlanta’s answer to the Chelsea Hotel. Needless to say, that would make it the perfect place to catch Trainspotting author, Irvine Welsh.

The newly renovated ballroom is in the basement of the Highland Inn, and it has its own bar. There was a $15 charge for the reading, which inlcluded a signed paperback of the book and two drink tickets. Slim Jim’s, Twizzlers, water, and soda were complimentary. That’s not bad considering the Center for Southern Literature usually charges a minimum of $10 just to get in the building. But wait, there’s more: You could also sign up for a free subscription to the local quarterly lit mag the Chattahoochee Review (which I forgot to do).

Opening act Hub Cap City

The reading also featured an opening band, Hub Cap City. I’d never been to a reading with an opening act before. The music fit very well with the Irvine Welsh mystique as well. The trio played multiple instruments and might best be described as “experimental noise” – but in a cool way. The instruments included the typical – guitar, drum, trumpet – and the atypical – typewriter, hand saw played with a violin bow, garbage can lid. The singer/guitarist/trumpet player wore an orange skull mask and made announcements about the “tango contest” between songs.

Irvine Welsh was introduced by Marc Fitten, editor of the Chattahoochee Review, and Fank Reiss, owner of A Capella Books – our hosts for the evening. The first order of business by Mr. Welsh was to ensure that everyone could understand his Scottish accent. When the crowd indicated that we could, he gave thanks to pioneering Scotsmen Groundskeeper Willy and Shrek for bringing the Scottish accent to the American people. This was going to be an entertaining evening.

Walsh read from four different passages from the book that, on their own, seemed to create a narrative arc. What I’ve always loved about Welsh’s writing is his ability to capture the slang and patois of the Scottish pub/drug culture, as well as the Scots everyman. From what he read last night, the Bedroom Secrets does not dissapoint on that score. The reading finished with what has got to be the most disgusting sex scene ever recorded in the English language. But in an amusing way.

Irvine Welsh reading from Bedroom Secrets

The Road to Hell

At the outset of this week, I intended to post on five books. (I’m way behind.) That number was scaled down to one two.

I also intended to write a post about two interesting articles that I had read “recently.” One was a book review in The Guardian for Violation by David Rose. It is about a miscarriage of justice in Georgia that was racially motivated. I was going to link that review to an article in the New York Times that I read around the same time. The article has been “disappeared” behind their Times Select wall. It was called Interpreting Some Overlooked Stories From the South, and it was a fascinating look at the new generation of Southern historians. The article included discussion of whether it is relevant to discuss Southern history as separate from our collective history going forward. The post was also going to contain a dig that these are exactly the kind of articles that the AJC should be covering. Man, that post I was going to write (working title: The Race Beat) was going to totally kick ass and foster some great conversation. But I missed the boat.

I was also going to tie that post in with a book that I have to give away. I suppose I could still give the book away, couldn’t I? OK. I have a copy of The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill to give away. The book tells the story of a slave that fought her way to freedom during the Revolutionary War to serve the British. She is entered into the “Book of Negroes” – an actual historical document containing a list of Loyalist slaves who asked permission to resettle – now free – in Nova Scotia. Historical fiction up for grabs. Leave a comment if you’re interested in the book. L’il Cayenne will draw a name next week.

Alright. So I did accomplish something this week. I also got to spend two days in Alabama. Whee.

The Onion: Woman Who Claims Book Changed Her Life Has Not Changed.

Did you see Salman Rushdie on The Colbert Report?

Alright. I’ll work on getting my act together next week.

Love is a Mix Tape – 2

Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield had been on my list of books to check out after reading a post by Kerry on the Pickle Me This blog.  Then BGB’s Shaft posted about it on our very own blog.  With a copy to borrow in my own area code, I finally read it myself.   

If you’re not familiar with the book, it is a non-fiction account of personal tragedy in Sheffield’s life.  Sheffield is an editor for Rolling Stone, and his wife was a music writer as well.  She died suddenly of a brain aneurysm, and he remembers her through the framework of the mix tapes that they compiled together and separately over the years.

I was sympathetic to the idea of this book, because I am almost as big of a music geek as I am a book nerd.  Unfortunately, in the early goings of the book, I focused more on the mix tape play list that starts each chapter than the story. I was critical when Sheffield broke many of the unwritten rules of mix tap mastery.  For example, starting a mix tape with five songs by the same artist?  Not allowed. 

To give you some idea of where I’m coming from on this score, I once had to “liberate” a mix tape called “Master Jams 4″ from a party.  It was so bad that I had to make sure it would not be heard again.  (Of course, it is in my car today – readily available for comedy purposes.)  But I digress.

When Sheffield’s wife dies, his writing about that experience is incredibly raw and honest. I was able to put the music snobbery behind me.  Processing the inexplicable by surrounding himself with the music that they shared rang absolutely true.  I had the misfortune of attending the two separate funerals last year of friends that were each under 40. CDs were handed out to those in attendance at each.  It helps.  It’s something tangible (that’s not really tangible) that you can hold on to in order to remember.  Music has the power to transport you directly to places that you hadn’t thought about at all since the last time you heard that particular piece of music.  I think that music is as close as we can get to a time machine.

So yeah, I was moved by the book.  I recommend it if the subject matter doesn’t scare you off.  Sheffield is an excellent writer, and he handles what is clearly a difficult personal topic with style and grace.  Skip it if that music:time machine analogy doesn’t work for you.

TBR Stack

Some super genius has started a Flickr photo group for people to submit pictures of their “to be read” pile. This is a snapshot of what mine looked like as of last night. It’s an ever changing stack. Somehow that Pynchon keeps migrating to the bottom (via Boing Boing).

Review Round-up

Bookslut has a review of the new Nathan Englander book The Ministry of Special Cases.

The Guardian reviews (sort of) the new Lethem, You Don’t Love Me Yet.

Chuck Pahlaniuk’s Rant is reviewed in the San Francisco Chronicle and by Janet Maslin in the New York Times.

Meanwhile, Jamestown by Matthew Sharpe gets roughed up in the New York Times. I don’t think the reviewer “got it” though. She admits, essentially, that she doesn’t follow the author “again and again” through out the book. Then she says:

He chose as one of his central metaphors the bowel movement. The novel features all manner of droppings. We see characters relieving themselves, i.e. their pants are down, i.e. they’re not looking too dignified.

Her point is that Sharpe needlessly provides what the kids call “too much information.” Luckily, the counterpoint to this argument was made in a review of the non-fiction, The True Story of Jamestown, 1607, and the Settlement of America. It notes how hapless our founding brethren truly were. The “bloody phlux” almost wiped out the entire population. Later, these colonists were found as emaciated skeletons that almost starved to death from their inability to feed themselves in a nation full of game, plant life, and fish. Not too dignified is exactly how I’d describe it. It’s a wonder we stuck around. For more on Jamestown (the fictional one) see an interview with the author at Bookslut or me.

ANYWAY…

You shivered while reading McCarthy’s The Road. You hid under the covers reading Sharpe’s Jamestown. Is The Pesthouse by Jim Crace the heir to the post-apocalyptic crown? Or just a faux-pocalyptic pretender? Find out at the NYT and the San Francisco Cronicle.

The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish by Elsie Blackwell, about Louisiana under water, is reviewed by the Washington Post Book World.

Dave Barry reviews the e-mail netiquette book Send hilariously (as is his wont) in the New York Times Book Review.

The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño is reviewed in the Washington Post Book World.

The Guardian calls the non-fiction book The Islamist “a wake up call for Britain.”

Update: This just in.  Michiko takes a poop on the new Don Delillo, Falling Man.

Steven Hall in San Francisco

Last week I went to a reading in San Francisco by Steven Hall, author of the much-blogged-about, already-destined-for-the-movie-screen, absolutely original novel “The Raw Shark Texts.” In the interest of full disclosure, I must confess at the outset of my post (as I have already confessed to Mrs. Cayenne) that I have a ridiculous schoolgirl crush on Mr. Hall. So there. Keep that in mind as you read on.

Having never been to a reading before – much less blogged about one – I’m not sure where to start or what to say. Hall read from three chapters in the book, which, when heard together, tell their own short story of sorts. He started with the opening to Chapter 4, which finds Eric sitting on the beach waving/saluting to Clio, who is out in the ocean snorkeling, topless (or, more accurately, “continentally tits out”). Here’s an amusing part of Chapter 4 that he read:

Actually, here’s something important about Clio; when she says ‘tits’ she sounds smart and sexy and 21st-century – ‘There’s no point fucking around with these things, Eric’ – the way some women, and I suppose some guys effortlessly can. When I say ‘tits,’ though, I sound like a sleazy tabloid journalist.

“Tits out” may be my new favorite phrase. The other parts he read were from a later section of the same chapter, when Eric and Clio talk about how “It’s tiring not knowing people, isn’t it?”; Chapter 1, when he first comes out of unconsciousness, and then when he meets Dr. Randle for the first time and she tells him that he had a girlfriend named Clio and that she’s dead; and Chapter 13, when he gets a mysterious call on his cell phone, and after listening to static for a few moments, blurts out, “Clio?”

After the reading, Hall took a few questions (the crowd was light, and not all that talkative). I asked what I explained was probably a “very American, not particularly intellectual” question – “What’s so funny/odd about the cat being named Ian?” Hall laughed, and said that he gets that question a lot in the States. Apparently “Ian” is a very plain, geeky name in the UK, and there is in fact a soap opera character by that name who he says is very “un-catlike.” The crowd collectively decided that the equivalent cat name in the US would be something like “Bob” or “Fred.”

In response to another of my questions (really, everyone else was being lame), Hall told us that one of his favorite things about the book is the “character” of Ian. He has no role at all in developing the plot, but he has such a presence, and he really becomes as much a character as any other. Hall wowed the very artsy Haight-Ashbury crowd (and the very un-artsy me) with the diversity of his talents – he’s sculpted, painted, photographed, made short films, written and produced plays, and he’s at work on his next novel. Which he’s basically writing in his head. Which is the way he wrote TRST (as he stared out the window on his hour-long-each-way train commute to his last day job.) (“What do I have to show for my daily train commute,” I began to wonder.) Only this time, Hall admits he’s making a few more notes – which are mostly doodles on a large sketchpad. Wow. (You’re getting a crush on him now, too, aren’t you? Admit it.)

At the book signing table, I revealed my identity as the West Coast BGB correspondent. Hall was very gracious about the “quite nice things” the BGB’ers have said about him and the book. He laughed about the kitten-blood edition and half a dozen other versions of the book that have landed on the Cayenne family doorstep. When he saw that my copy of the book didn’t have its dust jacket on (because the jacket would get all mangled on my train commute, what with the constant in-and-out of the tote bag), he decided that it needed some cover art to relieve the stark whiteness. So now it looks like this:

Hall also gave me a supply of these to leave around in un-space:

There is a special severed-kitten-tail version on the back of the calling card just for DJ Cayenne:

I’m going to wait for someone else to post on the book itself. But I will say that I found it to be one of the most original, gripping, masterfully constructed, beautifully written books I’ve read in quite a long time. Hall has a gift for understanding and translating into words what it feels like to think and remember and dream and love and imagine. Here’s an example:

What a difference a day makes, twenty-four little hours. Staring into space myself, I found the light floaty scrap of tune rising up out of the back of my mind as I chewed. It made me think about how, in the dark places of yourself, thinking machines you never get near enough to see are constantly building things and running their own secretive programmes all of their own. Maybe you get a snippet of what’s going on back there, like this fragment of a song drifting its way into the light, or a phrase, or an image, or maybe just a mood, a wash of content or a bleak draining of colour that floods your chest and your stomach more than it ever finds its way into the bright halogen chrome of your mind.

If you don’t already have a copy of TRST, let DJC know – he may have some free copies left!

The Session

I picked up The Session by Aaron Petrovich after hearing him read at the Brooklyn in Decatur event back in March. Petrovich wowed the audience, or at least this member of the audience, by “performing” his reading without actually looking at the text. That’s how familiar he was with own passages. It’s an impressive thing to witness.

The book is described as a novella in dialogue. The cover bears the following cryptic blurb by Andrei Codrescu, “Petrovich is Beckett’s organ.” I have no idea what that means. (For what it’s worth, I asked Petrovich himself, and he wasn’t real sure either.) Wordsmiths’ Russ describes the book “as the literary equivalent of sudoku” and “a bedtime story for hipsters who can’t sleep and have nothing to drink.” I’m not sure what that latter part means either. See a pattern?

Here’s what I can tell you. The novella is written as a dialogue, but there are no quotation marks or “he saids.” So, it’s not always apparent who is talking. The conversation is between two men, each named Smith who are also each detectives. They may be the same person. Or, one of them may be dead. Also, one of them may be a psychiatrist. Or, all of these things may be true at various points along the way. If you don’t like having your head messed with every now and again you may want to move on.

Petrovich works in the New York theatre as an actor and a playwright. His sense of theater seems to inform the work, with the pace and rhythm of the dialogue driving the story. It’s a nifty piece of back and forth, but it’s not for everyone. It’s fairly short, under 100 pages, so The Session does not require a major commitment to check out.

I enjoyed it, and I recommend it to anyone that likes sharp, crackling (if nebulous) dialogue. I also recommend that you check out Petrovich if he’s reading anywhere near you. There is a rumor floating around that he may be in attendance at this year’s Decatur Book Festival, so keep an eye out for those details as they materialize. His publisher’s web site is pretty flippin’ sweet as well.

In the Lit Mags

I picked up the latest copy of Granta this weekend. I’ll confess. I’ve never read it before. This issue weighs in at 352 pages, and it set me back $16 with tax. Yipes.

The draw, of course, was that the issue is packed with short stories by America’s top 20 young novelists, as named by the mag. The list includes: Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, Dara Horn, Gary Shteyngart, Olga Grushin, et al. I was still on the fence about buying until I noticed the title of the Dara Horn story: Passover in New Orleans. Done. The Guardian writes about the issue here, and you can listen to the NPR story here.

I’ll weigh in when I’m finished. It’ll be my all-time commute book until I’ve read them all. I’m definitely counting this as a “book” for the purposes of my books read in 2007 list. At 352 pages it is longer than several books that I’ve already read this year.

Unlike my impulse purchase of Granta, I actually subscribe to The Believer. This months issue reveals the winner of the 2006 Believer Book Award. Do I even have to tell you who won?

Here’s a hint. The winning authors initials are Cormac McCarthy. This year’s award differed from years past in that the winner was selected by a poll of readers. Interestingly, the list contains two redacted names. Authors who have a connection to the mag were not listed because they thought that was “creepy.” I’m guessing that the authors dropped were Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida. I could be wrong. You can read the full list here.

Reading through the list, I’m determined to go back and read Chris Adrian’s The Children’s Hospital (#3), Kathryn Davis’ The Thin Place (#17), and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun (#22).

The issue also includes reviews of Nathan Englander’s The Minsitry of Special Cases, Lydia Davis’ Varieties of Disturbance, and Benjamin Black’s (John Banville) Christine Falls. It also includes interviews with Monica Ali and Will Sheff (of the literate indie rock band, Okkervll River). John Hodgman guests hosts Amy Sedaris’ advice column.

Free Comics Day

Today is Free Comic Book Day.  Your favorite comix purveyors are giving away free comic books all across the country.  You can’t argue with free.  Here in Atlanta, Criminal Records has you covered.  They’re also having a vinyl record sidewalk sale.

More Chabon

A few links (OK, two) to get you through that last bit of Friday afternoon:

• Michael Chabon interviewed at Salon. (Thanks for the link, Frank.)
• Terry Gross interviews Chabon on Fresh Air. (Thanks to Mrs. Cayenne for telling me about it!)

More from the Protest

I was going to call this post “the revolution will not be blogged,”  but I have no idea what that even means.   Below are some more pics from the protest/read-in at the AJC today.  I work around the corner, so I was able to pop in and out at various times throughout the day.

Things kicked off at 10 with protesters meeting in front of the AJC building with signs. Some were hand lettered, while others were simply the AJC book section mounted on a stick.  In a previous post, commenter FlavaWheel suggested carrying a sign that said, “When book reviews are outlawed, only outlaws will have book reviews.”  Given the anti-litblog backlash that has been brewing over the past week, I would have needed a black hat to go with the sign.

I was pleasantly surprised to find Tom Key conducting readings as things got underway.  If you’re not from Atlanta, there is a simple way to tell if a play here is going to be any good – check to see if Tom Key has anything to do with it.  If so, your odds are pretty good.  The readings that I saw were excellent, and I couldn’t believe that I was getting to check it out for free.  Someone needs to corral Tom Key into making this reading thing a regular feature of the Atlanta scene, charge admission, and serve drinks.  Seriously.  Make it happen.

The media were out in force.  The word on the sidewalk was that CNN, C-Span, the local Fox station, and others were on hand.  CNN ran this post, but that’s all I’ve seen from them.

A bulletin board was set up that included Richard Ford’s post at Critical Mass, a paper copy of the online petition, etc.  Hand outs of each were available for foisting on the passerby as well.

Have I mentioned that Tom Key was there?  Holy crap!

Later in the day, as the the numbers dwindled, the sidewalks did the talking.  One item said, “book reviews are better in print.”  I’ve got some doubts. After all, I’ve never held a paper copy of The Guardian, but I think that they have some of the best book coverage going.  It may be true for the AJC though.  Here’s an experiment: (1) go to the AJC web site,  (2) try to find anything that you would call the “book section,” (3) Keep looking.  I’ve been searching high and low.  If they truly plan to move their book content online, they may need to learn how to put things on the internet first.  I’m just saying…

I ran back by around 3 PM and everyone had cleared out.   I guess now we wait and see.  I’m not expecting much.

I returned to the office to find that Atlanta author (and Emory professor) Joseph Skibell had posted about the controversy at Critical Mass (So weird. We were just talking about that guy).  Anyway, it could be argued that the AJC could now invoke Godwin’s Law and win the arguement.

Notes from a Demonstration

The protest/read-in at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Building began this morning at 10. I ran down to check it out. So far, a small but determined group has assembled. A nice media presence was present reporting on the event. Tom Key, the king of Atlanta theater and head of The Theatrical Outfit, was reading aloud from To Kill a Mockingbird, The Moviegoer, and other works. That was cool enough on its own to warrant a crowd. The one misstep, and I’m quibbling, Tom Key said in his intro to The Moviegoer that if left to bloggers the book probably would not have received the recognition that it deserves. WTF? Everyone in the blogosphere totally blew it on The Road this year, right? Tom, it’s not an either/or scenario. ANYWAY, I had to dash back for a meeting. I’m going to go back out during lunch and see how its going. I’ll post more (and better) pictures this evening.

Leni

Ever have that experience where you see something or someone everywhere you go.  I’m having that experience right now with the book Leni by Steven Bach.  It tells the story of a woman who valued art above people in the most extreme case possible. She was Hitler’s propaganda film maker.  The book first appeared on my radar screen when Wordsmiths’ Russ posted about the book and the author’s upcoming appearance in Atlanta (which I missed – mea culpa).  Then, like the next day, I heard the author being interviewed on the Diane Rhem show while I was minding my own business driving around Cincinnati (scroll down).  Then I stumbled across reviews in The Guardian, TimesOnline, and New York Times. it turned up in my Powell’s newsletter.  My hope is that by pointing all this out to you, the book will quit stalking me and move on to you.  Thanks.

NYT takes up the AJC issue

Motoko Rich reports on the AJC/book review crisis in the New York Times (High-fives for the link to Frank, Journo Friend, and Nitro). My sources tell me that Rich used to work in Atlanta when he was with the Wall Street Journal, so he’s better able than most to weigh in on the local scene. The article and some of the online discussion seems to pit the “professional print class” against the “on-line amateur class.” As in, newspapers had better get tehir sh*t together or all we’re going to be left with is the ramblings of “some guy sitting in his basement in Terre Haute.”

I’m not all that concerned with whether or not my local paper prints book reviews per se. I do believe, however, that there should be someone whose paying job it is to locally manage coverage of literary news, frame the important discussion for the local literary crowd, and ensure that all of the writing is of the highest quality. Relying on free-lancers and wire coverage meets none of these objectives. The AJC is uniquely positioned to be the authority on Southern Literature reporting, but they seem to either not care or not recognize this opportunity.

I also don’t really care if the AJC chooses to provide my local literary news in print or on-line, I just want to know its there for me. Somewhere. In the mean time, I plan to continue to scour the internet to find the trusted voices that are out there talking about books. Why do I have to choose between a half-assed NYT review or a better review written by a trusted internet voice? Why can’t I read both, read the book, and add my own voice to the interwebs?

More thoughtful discussion: Colleen at Chasing Ray asks why focus on print book reviews at all when the real literary battle should be being fought for our libraries. (via Edward Champion’s).

Update: Forgot to mention it earlier – don’t forget the protest/read-in goes down tomorrow at the AJC building at 10 AM – til.

Shay-Bone!

Yesterday was the US release date for the new Michael Chabon book, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union. Michiko Kakutani of the NYT seems to love it. I’m looking for the catch. She hates everything.

This weekend the NYT also ran a story about a trip that Chabon took to the Alaskan island of Sitka. The name is used for the fictional enclave in the book that becomes home to the Jews after the collapse of Israel after World War II. Chabon meets with the small local Jewish community to discuss the book. The headline of the article is The Frozen Chosen.

I’ve got a copy of this one in my mitts. If I can pry it away from Mrs. Cayenne, I’ll tackle it as soon as I finish a book that may turn out to be the first that I give up on in ten years.